Eva Kittay

Eva Kittay is a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at SUNY Stony Brook.^[1] Her primary interests include feminist philosophy, ethics, social and political theory, metaphor, and the application of these disciplines to disability studies.^[1] Kittay has also attempted to bring philosophical concerns in to the public spotlight, including leading The Women's Committee of One Hundred in 1995, an organization that opposed to the perceived punitive nature of the social welfare reforms taking place in the United States at the time.^[2]

Education and career

Kittay received her bachelor's degree from Sarah Lawrence College in 1967, and went on to receive her doctoral degree from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York in 1978.^[3] After receiving her doctorate, she accepted a position as Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Maryland, College Park for the 1978-9 year, before accepting a permanent position at SUNY Stony Brook in 1979 as Assistant Professor.^[3] Kittay was promoted to Associate Professor in 1986, and full Professor in 1993.^[3] Kittay received a Distinguished Professorship from Stony Brook in 2009.^[3] Kittay is also a Senior Fellow at the Center for Medical Humanities, Compassionate Care, and Bioethics at Stony Brook, and a Women's Studies Associate.^[3] In addition to these permanent positions, Kittay has accepted a variety of temporary appointments, including ones at Sarah Lawrence College an Newcastle University.^[3]

Research areas

Kittay's research has focused on feminist philosophy, ethics, social and political theory, metaphor, and the application of these disciplines to disability studies.^[1] Her viewpoints on the ethics of care are quite similar to those of Virginia Held and Sara Ruddick - namely that human interactions occur between people who are unequal yet interdependent, and that practical ethics should be fitted to life as most people experience it.^[4] Kittay has also extended the work of John Rawls to address the concerns of women.^[5]

Selected bibliography

Books

• Kittay, Eva (1987). Women and moral theory. 
• Kittay, Eva (1987). Metaphor: its cognitive force and linguistic structure. 
• Kittay, Eva (1992). Frames, fields and contrasts. 
• Kittay, Eva (1999). Love's labor: essays on women, equality, and dependency. 
• Kittay, Eva (2002). Theoretical perspectives on dependency and women. 
• Kittay, Eva (2003). The subject of care. 
• Kittay, Eva (2006). Blackwell's studies in feminist philosophy. 

Chapters in books

• Feder Kittay, Eva (2005), "Vulnerability and the moral nature of dependency relations", in Cudd, Ann E.; Andreasen, Robin O., Feminist theory: a philosophical anthology, Oxford, UK Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishing, pp. 264–279, ISBN 9781405116619. 

References